Expat identity crisis: who are you when nobody from home is watching?

The plane touches down at Dubai International a little after midnight, and something in you changes gear before the seatbelt sign goes off.

For two weeks you were at your parents' house. You slept in your old room. Your mother asked if you were eating properly. Your brother made the same joke he's made since you were twelve, and you laughed the same laugh. Within a day you were the youngest again, the quiet one, the one who left. You felt it happen and couldn't stop it.

Now, in the taxi along Sheikh Zayed Road, the other version is coming back online. The one with the title, the network and the opinions. The one who negotiates, who's sure of themselves in meetings, who people here would describe as "very together". By the time you're through your front door, you'll be fully them again.

And somewhere between the two, in the back of a taxi at one in the morning, there's a small question you can't quite shake. Which one of those is actually me?

Neither answer feels right. That's the part nobody warned you about.

What is an expat identity crisis?

An expat identity crisis is the sense, after living abroad for a while, that you no longer know who you are. The self you were at home doesn't fit anymore, and the self you built overseas starts to feel like a role. Underneath it sits a bigger discovery: both may be costumes.

That's the uncomfortable news. It's also, as you'll see, the good news.

Why does living abroad shake your sense of self?

Because for the first time, nobody from home is watching.

At home, who you are is held in place by everyone around you. Your family knows which one you are: the responsible one, the difficult one, the one who'll never settle down. Your school friends remember you at fifteen. Even the man at the corner shop knows your father. You don't have to maintain that self. Everyone maintains it for you.

Then you get on a plane. In a city like this one, where so many people arrived from somewhere else, nobody knows your history. Nobody remembers who you were supposed to be. For many people, that's the first great relief of expat life. You can try on a new version of yourself, and there's nobody to tell you it isn't you.

So you build one. More confident, perhaps, or more successful, or more fun. Someone who speaks up. Someone who earns well, travels often, and has a good answer to "so what brought you to Dubai?"

That new self isn't fake. You worked hard for it, and it carried you through a move that would have flattened plenty of people. But notice what happened. You didn't become yourself. You swapped one set of expectations for another. The old audience was your family. The new audience is the city.

If you'd like to talk this through with someone, Sara, our veteran RS Method Master Coach, offers a free 20 to 40 minute mentoring session on Zoom. Just you and her. She listens, helps you see what you're carrying and what can be done, and says so if we're not the right fit. You can book it here. Or read on.

Is the self I built overseas the real me?

It can feel closer than the one you left behind. But it's still a costume, and here's how you can tell: it needs maintaining.

The overseas self has to keep earning its place. It needs the title, which is why losing a job here can feel like losing your whole existence, as I've written in who am I without my job. It needs the visa, the address, the right school for the children. It needs to look like the move was worth it, especially to the people back home. Every visit home becomes a quiet performance review.

And the old self never really left. It was folded into the suitcase. That's why, within a day of landing at your parents' house, you're the youngest again, flinching at the same comments and going quiet at the same table.

I know what it is to leave. I left my home country after a war, with nothing, because there was no future there for me. In my twenties I was washing cars in a rent-a-car office on a Greek island just to eat. Later I moved to the other side of the world, to South Africa. And when my life changed, it wasn't because I became someone new. I came home to who I was, before the world, and the war, and the failure told me who to be. I did not add anything to become this. I removed what was never mine. You can read the rest of it on my page.

So the real question underneath an expat identity crisis isn't "which country am I from?" It's older than that. Who were you before anyone, at home or abroad, told you who to be? I've written about how the false self forms in true self vs false self, and about the strange blankness of not knowing the answer in I don't know who I am anymore.

Why can't I just decide who I am?

Because the costumes don't live in your opinions. They live in your body.

You can decide on the flight home that this time you won't get drawn into the old family roles. Then your father makes one remark about your career, and your chest tightens and your voice goes up half a tone before you've had a single thought. You're fifteen again, at the same table, and the decision you made at thirty-five thousand feet is nowhere to be found.

The same thing happens in reverse, back here. You can tell yourself you don't need the title to feel like somebody. Then someone at a dinner asks what you do, and you feel the pull to make it sound bigger.

That's because every costume is held on by the same thing: a thought fused to a charge. The thought is "I have to be the good son" or "I have to have made it". The charge is a memory with weight on it, weight the body put there, often a long time ago. Understanding argues with the thought. It never touches the charge. That's why you can see your pattern perfectly from a taxi at one in the morning, and still watch it run the next day.

When the charge comes off, something simple happens. The memory stays. The weight goes. Your father can make the same remark, and it lands as a remark. Someone can ask what you do, and you can answer without reaching. The costumes don't have to be fought off. Nothing is holding them on anymore. The freedom is in the removal.

If you've lived abroad for years, you can probably describe both of your selves in detail. You may never have sat with someone outside the tangle and looked at what's holding those selves on. That's what the free session with Sara is for: twenty to forty minutes, just you and her, looking at what you're carrying and what can be done about it. You can book it here.

What can I try before my next trip home?

Try what I call the two-passport audit. It takes twenty minutes and a pen, and it works best a few days before you fly.

1. Draw two columns. Head one "Home" and the other "Here".
2. In the Home column, write who you become there. Not who you'd like to be. Who you actually become within a day of landing. "The youngest." "The one who doesn't make a fuss." "The one who left."
3. In the Here column, write who you have to be in this city. "The capable one." "The one who's doing well." "The one with an answer for everything."
4. Next to each line, write what you're afraid would happen if you stopped. "They'd be disappointed." "People would see I'm not coping." "I'd be nobody."
5. Circle any fear that shows up in both columns. For many people, one does. The same old fear, wearing two different costumes.
6. Notice how old that circled fear feels. Then ask yourself, quietly, who you were before you needed it.

The circled line is the one worth your attention. It isn't about Dubai, and it isn't about home. It's what both costumes were built to protect.

A note before we go on. Moving countries is a real loss, even when it's a good move, and for some people the loneliness and disorientation turn into low mood that won't lift. If that's you, please see a doctor or a mental health professional. If you're already working with one, keep going. Nothing here replaces that.

What would it take to feel at home in yourself, wherever you live?

Not another move, and not a better version of the overseas self. Whatever finally answers this question has to do three things.

1. It has to look at both costumes, not just one. Leaving home took one off for a while. Building a life here put another on. Until both are seen, you'll keep swapping between them at the airport.
2. It has to take the charge off, not just explain it. You already understand your family role and your need to have made it. Understanding hasn't moved either of them, because the weight was never in the understanding.
3. It has to happen with someone outside the tangle. You can't read the label from inside the bottle. Someone who isn't wearing your costumes can see what's holding them on.

That's what the five days of the RS Method Experience are for. Five days in one room in Dubai, with me and my Master Coaches, moving through the work in order: The Unbecoming Begins, What's Actually Been Running You, The Clearing, Who You Are Without It, and The Walk Home. Nothing is added. What was never you comes off, and you get to meet whoever is left. You can see how the five days work, and the next dates, on the RS Method Experience page.

What people describe afterwards isn't a new identity to keep up. It's the end of keeping one up. And when what comes off is heavy, it doesn't always take long. In one case, a lawyer's years of internal conflict resolved in minutes through a deep identity shift. I'd never hold that out as a promise to you. It's one person's result.

If you're not sure yet which room is right for you, start with the free session with Sara. Twenty to forty minutes, just you and her, and she'll tell you plainly if this isn't the right fit. Book your free session.

You are not broken. You are buried. And it was never really about the country.

Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.

P.S. Next time you land, at either end, you'll feel yourself change gear before the seatbelt sign goes off. Before that flight, take twenty to forty minutes with Sara and look at who's been doing the changing. Book your free session.